The cha cha was really special because Prince cleared his song “Kiss” for us to dance to. Prince said it was for Nicole and Nicole only, which was really cool. He’s an idol of Nicole’s. We had fun with the cha cha. We got a 29, probably losing a point because we used a chair in the beginning and Judge Len Goodman isn’t a fan of props.

As you saw on the show, I had a strained neck before performing in the semifinals. I have things happen to my neck all the time. For some reason, it’s a weak point where I often get injured. It hurt like crazy. I had been saying nothing had happened to me this season, which kind of jinxed it because that’s when I had the neck problem — crack! Oh, shoot, the semifinals, not good. But I got the best help I could — I went to an NHL hockey physical therapist who worked it out, iced it for 20 minutes and it freed up. It’s a miracle. Now I feel great.

Monday night, I also celebrated my 25th birthday. I’ve never been wished happy birthday so much in my entire life, ever. Everybody on the show, the entire audience sang happy birthday to me during a commercial break. And the icing on my cake was our great dances and scores. After the show, I celebrated at a club with friends like Mark Ballas; I blew out some candles and took a few pictures but I went straight home and went to bed by midnight. Nicole didn’t come with me to the club because her boyfriend Lewis Hamilton surprised her by flying in from Monaco so she wanted to spend the time with him. But I laughed so hard when she gave me her gift — a hand towel with the phrase “Sweet Sweat” on it. It’s a joke between us because yes, I do sweat a lot during all our rehearsals. Hey, dancing’s hard work!

And Maks from TV Guide – where he manages to keep most of his commentary about himself and Erin. Very refreshing.

I thought our Viennese waltz was great. The first step, Erin’s feet buckled. She was so nervous. I’ve never seen her this nervous and at the same time this pumped up. The combination of the two had a real weird reaction. The legs weren’t there, but she held it together and pulled off a great routine. We both laughed afterward. It was funny how discombobulated she got. The paso was so much fun. I was really upset by the package they showed before we danced. They compiled stuff on a really touchy subject with her parents. I was already on the floor for the dance and she left. I was like, “Oh no.” I looked backstage and Erin had tears going down, but she got back up. My mentality went from “Let’s prove something to everybody” to “Don’t worry about the competition. Just dance for us. Just let your emotions out on the dance floor.” And she did it. She tackled that paso like it was the last thing she’ll ever do in her life. There are pictures of the first couple seconds of the routine where we jump off the stage and she has this war-hero look on her face, like a superhero going in for the save. It was amazing and the entire dance was incredible. She was totally overpowering me, and that was OK. I usually let out a sound or whatever to get us going, but she just took off in the middle. It was awesome. I loved it. At the end, I didn’t slip. We landed at different times and I couldn’t save it, and that was it. I just didn’t want that to mar everything else she did. The pattern with the judges seems to be they have nothing constructive to say to her, so they would say something negative, and that’s not enough. I didn’t them to point fingers at her for it because she did nothing wrong, so right away, I said, “It’s not her fault; that’s my fault.” But it doesn’t matter whose fault it is because we’re a couple and we get one score for the two of us. I just didn’t want it put on her. Len didn’t like it, but he gave us a 10 for our Argentine tango last week, so now we just have to get 10s at the same time!

I'm a nerd and proud of it. Two degrees in geology also means I love BEER. :-) I'm also a Derek lover - proud of that too. So don't scream at those of us on this site and call us a bunch of "biased Derek-lovers" - it's just ME. :-) It may sound like I hate DWTS at times, but really, I'm just a snarky nitpicker from way back. And I'm cynical and jaded too. But I do love DWTS. :-)